by L. A. Banks
“I am leaving,” Shogun said between his teeth. “Don’t follow me.”
“She will only come to you once he is either dead or disgraced. Take your pick.” A devious smile widened on Lei’s gorgeous, exotic face when Shogun stopped walking but didn’t turn around. “It is the way of a woman of honor, yes?”
Her brother didn’t move and didn’t turn. That’s when she knew she had his ear.
Sliding off the stool she came to him to speak more privately. “Hunter is struggling with battle contagion. They are dosing him with external medicines, something no Shadow has ever had to do that we know of. If he doesn’t shake the contagion . . . they will put him to his death within their ranks or banish him. You know the circumstances of his birth.”
Shogun lifted his chin. “He was clawed from his mother’s womb and somehow survived.”
“His grandfather put a silver shell in your father’s skull,” Lei hissed between her teeth. “This has all come full circle through the generations.”
Shogun grabbed her arm hard. “The Shadow Clans do not know whose parents had willingly sided with the demon-Were Clans for strength—and the North American Shadow Wolf contingent need not ever know such an abomination came from our clan, especially not during this fragile new alliance. If it spills from your lips, and if this peace gets broken by your treacherous hand, I swear I will banish you from our family. You will be dead to me!”
Lei touched her brother’s face, her graceful hand sliding over his jaw. “Dear brother, I respect your role as family alpha, even though I am your elder. I am only making you aware of multiple political opportunities. If his health condition worsens, which is of no fault of yours—it was an accident that happened during battle, one you fought admirably with him to win—then he must step down. Perhaps he will be martyred. Regardless, his current mate will not be able to go into exile with him. She is also a part of the human military Paranormal Containment Unit within the US territory of North America. This means she is bound by duty to distance herself from him should he be diagnosed with contagion . . . it is also a part of her job as both a clan leader and a human military captain to kill him if he offers a clear and present danger. There would be no blood on your hands.”
Shogun rubbed his palms down his face, feeling a slight rush of perspiration cover his body. His sister was sick, twisted, but had brilliantly composed a fail-safe scenario for events that even he didn’t want to admit had kept him up nights.
“But there will be a void in her life, Shogun, as well as at the helm of the already resource-diminished North American Shadow Clan,” Lei pressed on carefully, her voice low and seductive. “In the interest of keeping the wolf Federations united as a whole, and keeping the Vampire Cartel voting bloc from again reigning supreme . . . I could see how an alliance between you two could have groundbreaking merit. This is all that I am asking you to consider, brother. If the opportunity presents itself, take it. As has been said within the Chinese tradition—better to be prepared for the opportunity that does not come than unprepared for the one that does.”
“I have to go,” Shogun said quietly, his voice thick with emotion.
Lei looked him up and down until shame made his face burn. “You want her so badly you are practically trembling. We need an heir. If you act with strategic focus, maybe you can sire one.”
“That’s enough—this discussion is over. It is also the last time we shall have it.”
“All right, as you wish,” Lei said with a slight bow.
“As I command,” Shogun said in a low rumble.
“Then as an apology for any affront to your sensibilities, let me offer you an alternative, at least for now. In the spirit of peace between siblings.” With a sly grin, Lei motioned toward a Werewolf female at a far table. “Seems she’d been propositioned by Hunter’s beta enforcer, but declined the Shadow in search of a real male . . . nothing locally suited her fancy, although she’d been interested in you since the conference, never sure you’d look her way. She’s a high-bred North American Were alpha from a very influential family. I personally tested her when she inquired about your availability. In life, there are always alternatives to what we truly desire . . . sometimes it is best that we settle for them, rather than torture ourselves over that which is beyond our reach.”
His sister’s words sliced at his pride and sent a jolt of defiance through him. “I never settle,” Shogun said.
“Of course not, darling. It is not the way of the Werewolf—or the Xi-Ho Clan.”
As much as he hated his sister’s meddling, it was hard to turn away from the auburn beauty with the hourglass figure and long legs situated at a provocative angle adjacent the bar. Her bored, sophisticated pout was poised at the rim of a short tumbler of scotch served straight. The red blouse she wore left little to the imagination, much like the formfitting black leather skirt that kissed the tops of her thighs. Red stilettos gave her shapely legs the appearance of being even longer, and her coppery hue added a finish to her vastly exposed skin that temporarily made his mouth go dry. A pair of hazel eyes suddenly looked up and captured his gaze, hunting it. He told himself he wasn’t settling . . . just choosing.
But pride made him square his shoulders more solidly to resist the temptation across the room, determined not to allow Lei to witness how significantly his need for Sasha, and hearing her in the throes of passion, had broken him down . . . that is, until a bold Fae archer stood and left the bar, headed in the lovely socialite’s direction. A low rumble filled Shogun’s throat. Poachers.
“Her name is Dana,” his sister murmured with a soft chuckle, melting into the thinning crowd. “Go on over and make yourself known to her. She won’t bite—unless you ask her very nicely.”
CHAPTER 5
Sasha rolled over and cold, empty space chilled her body. She sat up quickly and listened, but only the distant sounds of the B&B beginning to wake to its daily routine greeted her ears. Hunter was gone.
“Damn!” Her feet hit the floor as she flung off the tangled covers. This was not in the plan. In fact, it was dangerous for him to be AWOL this close to a full moon. She hated male ego bullshit! Time was running out, he had a medical condition that could go haywire at any moment, and he was missing on the very day she had to go in to meet the brass and concoct a story about why she and her team needed more time in New Orleans.
Pacing to the bathroom, she squeezed toothpaste onto her toothbrush and then shoved it in her mouth while scavenging in her jacket pocket for the cell phone she rarely used. Doc’s number was on speed dial. She pressed the button hard while going back to the bathroom to spit.
“Doc, listen,” she said breathlessly, not even waiting for a hello the moment the call connected. “I’m gonna meet you at the helipad on top of Tulane Hospital at oh-nine-hundred as planned so we can get that lift to base. But there’s been an incident that, uhmmm . . . I need more time here in New Orleans with my squad to investigate. I don’t mind going in to do the dog-and-pony show, but I need more time on the ground here to secure the perimeter, make sure everything checks out.” She was babbling as mild hysteria thrummed through her. Sasha closed her eyes and counted to ten.
“Understood,” Doc said crisply. “Given the circumstances this morning.”
His tone made her open her eyes and slowly pull the toothbrush out of her cheek. She could almost see his gaunt brown face contorted with worry and his silvery brows knit in deep concern; it was all in his voice.
Tension crackled on the line between them as she tried to think of something reasonable to say. It was only a few seconds, but it felt like ten minutes. She needed to ask him what had happened, but she’d already implied that she knew. Why she’d fed a line of bullshit to the man who was more than a project leader, but had been her surrogate father all these years, she wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps it had to do with not wanting him to know how deeply she’d blurred the lines between her personal and professional lives—to the point of potentially jeopardizing missions.
Beyond opting for evasive tactics, she threw out the simple truth of her not knowing as her stomach did flip-flops.
“What do you know about the situation so far, sir?” she asked in her best military-authority voice.
“That the boy was nineteen . . . a college student. Had only begun working at The Fair Lady as a waiter about a week ago. The way they found him in the Dumpster behind the establishment has been called a mauling. It has been attributed to area pit bull rings and drug gangs—a possible revenge assassination for unpaid drug money, retaliation for a love triangle of some sort, or just a sick homicide at ringside for big bets to see how long a human could last in the ring with a couple of pit bulls. That’s the current gamut of police speculation thus far. But I swabbed the body and examined it with the forensics team. That boy wasn’t mauled—he was half eaten. You and I both know the predator that leaves that kind of signature. I’ll see you on top of Tulane, Captain.”
The call disconnected in her ear. Doc Holland gave as good as he got. Sketchy intel. Cold sweat made Sasha wrap her arms around herself as she folded the phone in her palm.
When the hell did Hunter leave their room, and why?
He woke up in his wolf form bloody, his wolf coat wet and matted . . . his hunger thoroughly sated.
Hunter rolled over and jumped up, his paws making a gentle padding sound on the carpet of new grass beneath his feet. How had he gotten through the shadow passageways without his amulet? He didn’t remember the pain of transition. Had it been so bad he’d blacked out?
Thoughts crowded into Hunter’s groggy mind as he glanced around at the pristine Uncompahgre wilderness. Home. He threw his head back and howled, bristling the hair on his neck and back as the sound came up from the depths of his soul.
He was finally home, hundreds of miles away from the godforsaken swamps of Louisiana. The pathways had brought him to a place of comfort. Home—where his DNA danced and his people had flourished since time immemorial. This was where he’d needed to come to heal. Only the scent of his natural wilderness, with its indescribable mountain ranges and crystal-clear streams and lakes, could coax his Shadow Wolf out of hiding. The blackouts be damned, he was where cellular memory could guide him. Sasha didn’t understand; this was where he could be what he truly was . . . all wolf. Shadow Wolf.
Taking off in a flat-out dash, he ran free, feeling the wind on his face, cutting through his blood-damp coat. The scent of blood made every aching muscle in his shoulders and back defy the burn of exertion. He was wolf. Never again would he allow himself to be trapped in his man skin when his wolf raged for release under the moon.
Ecstasy made him high. He’d beaten the beast—his wolf had come to him under the glorious sun! He wasn’t trapped by moon phases like his Werewolf brethren. He could change! Shape-shift! Dance amid the shadows and disappear. He could graze the ground like a swirl of fallen leaves simply by melding into their shadows, or soar with returning Canada geese as their thick bodies moved across the sky but left shadows for him to leap into on the ground. He was free, thank the Great Spirit, he was free!
Ice-cold mountain water shocked his system as he thundered through it, washing his coat, and then tore off for the opposite streambank to shake himself out before running again. Damp, fertile earth and new foliage stung his nose, making him leap for joy in a circle for a moment and then tear off again across a clearing. All he needed to do was find his pack.
Wait till Sasha saw him like this!
Sasha entered Tulane Hospital freshly showered and wearing her military dress blues. Security guards and hospital staff gave her nods of recognition as she passed them stone-faced. Who could forget the female soldier who’d strolled into Tulane with a huge black wolf dog at her side just a month prior?
Her eyes straight ahead, Sasha pushed the elevator button and waited, seeing nothing, feeling everything. The lab was her destination before she went to the helipad. She needed to give her squad last-minute instructions; the timetable had shifted. Clarissa needed to know that, too.
Instead of friendly hellos as she entered the room, her squad stood and slowly saluted her as though witnessing a funeral procession. Doc Holland pushed away from a microscope, his gaze meeting Sasha’s as she ended her own salute to the team. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be waiting for her up on the roof. Acid roiled in her stomach. The look on his face made her want to weep. If she weren’t a soldier, she might have given in to the urge to go to him to hug him and just let it all out.
She hated her job; hated her life. Doctor Xavier Holland, friend, mentor, geneticist, genius, seemed like today he hated his, too.
“You’re early, Captain,” he said, putting professional distance in their relationship, normally much like a father and daughter.
“Circumstances dictated I should be, sir.”
They stared at each other, the question of Hunter’s whereabouts a silent partner in the room. Unable to stand it, Sasha turned her gaze to her team.
“Woods, Fisher, as I’m sure you’ve been briefed, we have a critical situation on our hands. Need you to guard the lab. Dr. Holland and I will be meeting with the general this morning at the naval air station, but it is imperative that none of our hazmats get out of this lab. Understood?”
“Roger that,” Woods said, his tone military but his expression pained.
Grief had crippled the team, but the only indicator was in their eyes.
“Bradley,” Sasha said, her voice strained as she addressed the team’s dark arts expert. “I want you on human-supernatural intel. Find me Voodoo priests, psychics in the area, parlor madams, every- and anybody who interfaces with the supernatural community from the human side of that equation who might have heard an underground buzz about that kid’s death.”
“On it,” Bradley said, his voice tough but eyes holding a silent apology.
She turned away from him to Winters; she had to if she hoped to keep her mask intact. “I want you on every GPS satellite and radar system we’ve got, Winters. I want to know what opened that kid up and I want it found.” Before he could respond, she sent a steely glare toward Clarissa. “How much anti-toxin do we have left in cold storage? I need shells loaded with it so—”
“None,” Clarissa said quietly.
“What do you mean, none,” Sasha said more curtly than she’d intended, practically barking the question. She pointed at the men across the room. “Once Winters and Bradley locate the target, we’ll need that to load in Woods’s and Fisher’s shells. I want whatever we’re hunting to transition back to human form so we know which target was terminated. That’s vital intel to stem a potential civil war in the supernatural community.”
“The vials in the lab are gone, Sasha,” Doc Holland said carefully. “It takes time and very specific reagents to develop more. We have the luxury of neither. So you will have to build your case the old-fashioned way for the United Council of Entities and present findings from human forensic technology.”
Sasha didn’t even look at Doc as he spoke. Her eyes were on Clarissa, pleading. Clarissa’s expression acknowledged the plea and forgave the outburst.
“Then load ’em up with silver shells,” she said to Woods and Fisher. “Anything comes in here or tries to attack a member of the team, forget détente.”
“Roger that,” Fisher said quietly, his eyes searching her face with open suffering.
“Captain,” Doc said, his tone gentle. “We’re going to be late.”
Silver Hawk placed another log on the fire and watched the shadows dance on the rough-hewn cave wall. Thick plumes of smoke rose from incense pots and his pipe as his eyelids fluttered. His precious grandson . . . the child who had beaten the odds and fulfilled more than the prophecy but had filled his heart and closed the void. He tasted tears and let them fall. How could he deny his grandson’s increasing requests for more medicine that would keep the demon disease at bay? Every night he’d taken a few vials more; every night Hunter required more still. But he’d give
his life for his beloved grandson, if the exchange would be accepted by the skies.
Hunter was more than a grandson, he was a son that he’d raised . . . he was a piece of his soul. The Great Spirit had to have mercy on him, and perhaps on one very lonely old man who’d seen the death of his mate, his daughter, pack brothers . . . too many to count. Not this.
The elderly shaman threw his head back and howled a long, mournful wail, shedding his human form to become Silver Shadow on his spirit walk. Maybe his long-dead daughter would guide him. Hunter’s mother would know what to do.
He was the clan elder, but she was the man’s mother. There was nothing stronger than a mother spirit. Only a mother spirit could quell his heart and guide him to the truth. Only a mother spirit would know how to heal her sick child when the white man’s medicine didn’t work.
Strength and new resolve entered Silver Shadow’s wolf body, made virile by the transformation. In the shadow lands the mist played tricks with his eyes, but his nose could never be fooled. She was near. He closed his eyes and howled, sending the echoing call forth into the nothingness. Daughter. Come to me.
She stepped through the mist in silence, her spirit radiant in its human form. His wolf eyes looked up and again he tasted tears. But rather than run to him to hug his neck as she’d always done, a thick tide of tears filled her beautiful brown eyes and then spilled over her dark lashes in a river that washed her face. She covered her mouth with one graceful hand; the other was clenched in a fist at the pit of her stomach as though she’d been stabbed. She then turned away, shame the last expression she allowed him to glimpse. He turned away, needing to run but only able to lope to the edges of the shadows before collapsing as a broken man in sobs.